2008 05 09 OVC Best Practices.pdf - SAfAIDS

Communities are concerned about orphans and vulnerable children and are
responding. Most communities are willing to do more, but lack the financial
resources. A little technical assistance and training can support communities to do
more. External financial and material support should be provided to affected
countries and channelled to communities to build on local capacity and structures.
External agencies must focus on strengthening and supporting the ongoing efforts of
communities themselves. There is an urgent need to increase the ability of civil
society to access resources by increasing their ability to negotiate bureaucracy and
by stripping away bureaucratic hurdles.
Conclusions
Much of the work needs to be done at community level. There is a need for capacity
building for CBOs, FBOs, and capacity building requires greater funds. Significantly,
there is leadership present at community level, including churches, and the children
themselves. Most communities willing to do more but lack the funds. Investment in
communities can have wide reaching results. Tearfund cited an example where they
supported a small Christian organisation in Zimbabwe, which trained volunteers and
worked through 347 churches to reach 150,000 orphans in community based care.
Need to address the complex issues of social inclusion/exclusion. This requires
adequate technical support and the endorsement of a rights based approach.
CLOSING
The meeting was considered very useful. It was agreed that there is a need to
understand what scaling up really means in the context of community responses.
There was clear consensus on the need to develop a common language and
understanding between organisations with regard to the OVC that we work with. The
participants identified gaps in programmes, in particular asking that more gender
analysis was required in all programme approaches.
It was agreed that the OVC Working Group and DFID should co-host an annual
Symposium providing a forum for constructive dialogue between donors and civil
society. Finally, Symposium attendees agreed that civil society must continue to
represent the voices of communities and challenge donors to help to deliver a
sustained effective response.
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